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Just Say No!

spingirl | 09 May, 2006 13:10

So, my current job involves completing psychological evaluations on juvenile delinquents at the state juvenile correctional facitlity (or as I affectionately refer to it, kiddie prison). In the course of completing over 250 evaluations in the last 1.5 years, I have seen plenty of kids with drug problems. And when I say drug problems, I don't mean someone who sparks a joint up at a party every now and then. I mean someone who spends most of the day or week higher than a kite. As a result of my contact with these kids, I have come to a couple of conclusions about drugs.

First off: Current drug use prevention programs do not work. It is as simple as that. You can tell a 9-year-old to "just say no" all you want, but it seems like there are only a couple of things that will actually keep kids off of drugs: a strong family, a good peer group, and real goals for the future. Based upon my interactions with substance addicted kids, I have devised a drug prevention program of my own, one that I feel may actually work: Let kids spend a day with an honest-to-goodness druggie. Let the kids see just how many brain cells said druggie has killed. Let them see what drugs really do to brains as they watch their friendly druggie guide have trouble remembering simple facts from his or her own life or figuring out how to make change to buy a taco. Let them see what they could turn out to be. I know that working with these kids day-in and day-out has me scared shitless about the effects of drugs. It's quite sad to watch a 17-year-old kid be unable to form a simple design using four blocks because they have baked away most of the brain cells in their frontal lobe. My drug use prevention program would be a relatively cheap program, and it might knock more sense into impressionable kids than those stupid, unrealistic anti-drug commercials on tv.


Second: People can abuse the most seemingly harmless things. Sure, you hear about kids abusing Robitussin and robo-tripping (which, honestly, just sounds nasty), but I'm talking about really harmless stuff. Like deodorant-body-spray-harmless. I saw one kid who was addicted to - and I kid you not - Axe body spray. This child admitted to huffing 2 bottles of the stuff a day. In the back of mind, I'm thinking, "dear God, who were the poor souls that had live with this boy after he doused himself in 2 bottles of Axe per day?" In college, I had 2 friends who were so jonesing for a high, they smoked one of my tampons (not used, thank goodness). Sad, but funny stuff.

Third: In the grand picture of drug use, there are plenty of worse things your kid could be using than marijuana. Let me state clearly, I am not endorsing the use of marijuana. Unless a drug is peddled by a pharmaceutical company and advertised via a flashy commercial campaign, I would probably advise against putting in your body in order to alter your state of mind. But, if you find that you absolutely must use an illicit drug, marijuana is probably your best option. Yes, it can lead to apathy, lack of motivation, munchies, difficulties in problem solving, slowed reflexes and motor responses, impotence, and memory problems, but, in general, after discontinuing use, many of these problems will go away. To some extent at least. One hopes. You mess with things like inhalants, and, well, you might as well just give yourself a prefrontal lobotomy instead - at least you won't be messing up your lungs with a prefrontal lobotomy. Amphetamines, like crystal meth, well, let's just say that crystal meth is a reverse Fountain of Youth - it'll age you easy in just a short amount of time. PCP? Cocaine? Heroin? Do I really need to go there? It's so sad to see a kid who is using drugs other marijuana, and it's so easy to tell who they are. All the potential, all the possibilities, all those brain cells. Just gone. Poof! So, so sad.

So, what is the moral of my ramblings? Just say no to "Just Say No" and if you really feel like you have to use drugs, stick with the herbal stuff.

Our Crazy World :: Comment (2) :: Permalink :: Trackbacks (0)

Juvenile Correction Curriculum [Reply]

There are many young people that need to learn ways to do the right thing and stay out of trouble. I believe that people should be given new opportunities to focus their intelligence to do good things for them and others.

Older people also need to rememeber that they can fall anytime if they are not strong or think they know better.

There is a great source of information about Juvinile Correction Information that one can obtain.

Jfisher | 12/06/2006, 10:17

Juvenile Correction [Reply]

Just forgot to add the link :http://www.accilifeskills.com/juvenile-corrections/

Jfisher | 12/06/2006, 10:19

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